FG Barks, Threatens Sanctions against Telcos over “Rip Off”

The federal government has threatened to wield the big stick including severe sanctions against telecommunication companies over alleged rip-offs on its subscribers.

Bayo Shittu, minister of Communication who stated this said that “Nigerians are not happy about receiving unsubscribed text messages asking them to subscribe for one thing or the other without requesting for it.

“Personally, I have been a victim of this more than once. The second problem is dropping of calls. You will have two phones side by side and you will call the other one and they will tell you the number does not exist and a lot of Nigerians are being frustrated by this. The third one is deficiency in broadband penetration. You will discover that Nigerian telecom companies do not have the financial capacity to get telecom cable and mast into every community and that is why some communities do not have telecommunication services.

“The last is the payment for data for internet connectivity and you may not consume the data before it expires, instead of rolling it over when you subscribe again, they will say you have exhausted your data and ask you to subscribe afresh.”

Shittu disclosed that he has called for an emergency meeting between his ministry, Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) and all the telecommunication companies in the country to address these issues.

He disclosed that a final warning would be issued to the companies, vowing that fines would be imposed on any firm that fails to obey government’s directive.